One of the key frustrations of being placed on hold is not knowing how long it will take before the hold is released. It is not uncommon in certain scenarios for a caller to be put on hold for ten minutes or longer.
For example, market research has indicated that 35% of health care clinics indicated that their staff spent over six hours per week waiting for calls to be taken off hold by other physicians' practices, insurance companies, or other health care players.
Although held call monitoring has been proposed in the past, the features are activated and invoked when desired at the called party's end without much control on the part of the calling party.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,436,967, which issued to Hanson, discloses a held party call-back arrangement. The intent of this invention is to provide a busy agent at a call centre with the ability to return the calling party's call to mitigate the frustration of being put on hold. In this regard, the call centre provides the calling party with the option of being called back by the call centre when the agent is free. This is done either by automatically capturing the calling line ID (CLID) of the calling party or by asking the calling party to leave a voice message with a telephone number where he or she can be reached. Although the intent of the invention is to make call centres as caller friendly as possible, providing callers in queue with the option of being called back rather than waiting on hold, the invention relies on the called party having a call center with a call return feature to return incoming calls.
The invention applies well to businesses who have a need to be very caller satisfaction oriented, such as, for example order desks, customer service centers, etc. where inbound callers are generating revenue. However, many call centres are service bureaus, help desks, etc. where the emphasis is on cost minimization, i.e. reducing agent time per call, etc. rather than providing satisfaction to their caller and would therefore not be likely to install a call centre with this feature.
In addition, many callers would not be satisfied with either option: i.e. waiting on hold is frustrating and wastes time; and leaving a message to be called back is uncertain, that is, what assurance does the caller have that his position in the queue is maintained or that he will be called back. In some situations, this is impractical, especially when the caller is calling from a payphone or another number he cannot be reached at.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,731,822, which issued to Berry, III et al., is directed to a held party notification feature for use on a system such as a PBX wherein both the calling party and the called party are using extension telephones of this PBX. With this invention, when the called party places the calling party on hold, the held party is required to leave the receiver off-hook. A call processor software monitors the station set of the called party to detect the removal of the hold condition and of the calling party to detect on or off hook conditions. In response to the detection of the removal of the hold condition, such as when the called party depresses the line button on his or her telephone set, a signal such as a short burst of ringing is applied to the held party's station set to indicate that the call is no longer on hold. The conversation can then resume as soon as the held party retrieves the receiver. The problem with the aforementioned invention is that it does not address the scenario of a caller attempting to reach a called party over the public network who may be located at a different location. In addition, since the invention uses internal proprietary PBX signalling to determine the state and button presses of each extension,this feature is applicable uniquely to the manufacturer's PBX. Thus when a call is taken off hold, the PBX receives the appropriate signalling and signals the other party that a call has now been continued. When calls are made outside the bounds of the specific calling centre or switching system, this signalling and status information is not available and the feature does not apply.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,425,479 which issued to Dubner et al. describes an apparatus for enunciating completion of the hold. The invention describes a hardware peripheral device that is installed at the caller's telephone. When the calling party is placed on hold by the called party, the calling party places the handset onto the peripheral device and the peripheral device then monitors the audio signal coming from the holding party using voice detection circuitry. When a voice is detected, the peripheral device plays tones over the speaker that alerts the calling party to pick up the handset and resume conversation. This invention has a number of limitations, for example: it requires a hardware peripheral device to be available at the held person's telephone. It will not work when the holding party plays music or messages on hold or there is noise on the line, as these situations would be interpreted as a call answer; the caller cannot use their telephone while the call is being monitored; the alert tones would be confusing; and the called party would likely hang up if the caller does not pick up the phone immediately.
Accordingly, a need exists for a held line monitoring feature which overcomes the problems associated with the prior art.
Accordingly, it is a first object of the present invention to provide a method of enabling a subscriber invoked held call monitoring feature to subscribers that have established a communication link between each other.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a calling party invoked held call monitoring feature wherein the calling party has control over the activation of the held line monitoring feature when placed on hold by the called party.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of activating the monitoring of a call path established between a calling party and a called party, when said called party has placed said calling party on hold, wherein the calling party is able to activate, using a simple feature code, the held line monitoring feature.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of invoking a call path monitoring feature, wherein a message is used to provide instructions to the called party on how to reach the calling party once the hold is removed.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a method of invoking a held call monitoring feature, wherein the held party is informed of the hold release by detecting a signal indicative that the hold has been removed.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a method of invoking a held call monitoring feature, wherein the held party is informed of the hold release by detecting a DTMF tone issued or generated by the called party.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a method of invoking a held call monitoring feature for a call established between a calling party and a called party via the public service telephone network (PSTN).